CHAPTER 7

Charlie was in his quarters for several hours reviewing the disc that Mr. Spock gave him. Soon  he had a burst of inspiration to share with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock and the rest of the senior staff. He eagerly ran out of his quarters to the nearest turbo-lift and headed for the bridge. Charlie could barely contain his excitement to share the good news he had. When the turbo-lift doors opened to the bridge Charlie literally leaped out of it:

"Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, I have good news for you two! I think I know what to try for us to fight Gary Mitchell. Can you arrange a meeting for me in the briefing room with the senior staff and yourselves, so I can share my plans?"

Captain Kirk replied:

"Yes, Charlie that is good news. Uhura? Contact Chief Engineer Scott and Dr. McCoy and have them meet us in the briefing room. Charlie, Mr. Spock, and Captain Sulu come with me!"

Ten minutes later everyone was in the briefing room seated around the large conference table. Kirk spoke:

 

"Gentlemen, Mr. Evans has agreed to help us fight Gary Mitchell and he's asked us to assemble together to hear the plans he has made to do that. Okay, Charlie the floor is yours."

Charlie stood up and looked serious:

"Okay, the first step in my plan is for us to lay a trap for Gary Mitchell and his armada of rogue Federation starships and crews. We can't find him in a galaxy this big, but maybe we can figure out how to let him find us! After we figure that out, here's the next part of my plan. Captain Kirk told me the Enterprise has a cloaking device that makes her invisible in the visible light spectrums and also invisible to ships sensors for the most part. But Mr. Spock told me that a clever science officer might be able to track down a cloaked starship because the warp drive or impulse engines do leave a trail to some degree which ships sensors might be able to notice. Well I can use my powers to fix that and make the Enterprise totally invisible even to ships sensors.

“Next after we bring Gary Mitchell and his armada to us, if we can get close enough to the starships I think I can extend my powers to all of those ship's crews to put all of them to sleep in a way that Gary won't be able to wake any of them up and it will give me the time I need to figure out how to strip Gary Mitchell of his powers, at least temporarily, long enough for our forces to board his starship and kill him. The only problem is once the Enterprise is in close enough proximity to Gary's armada to put his crews to sleep, we will be in the same close enough proximity for Gary to use is powers to influence the minds of the Enterprise crew. But I think I can reverse anything he does to them, while I focus all of my powers on Gary to strip him of his powers. Gary will know what I am doing as soon as I try to interfere with his powers so he will probably try to do the exact same thing to me. It's going to depend on which of the two of us is more powerful, and there's no way to know that until it takes place. Its possible Gary can defeat me, and I might lose my powers, in which case everything I did to his crews will be undone, and then all you guys can try next is to run away and hide again. I am sorry I can't be sure what might happen, but that's the best plan I can think of."

Captain Kirk looked at his staff and all of them were nodding in agreement:

"Yes, Charlie your plan sounds feasible to doable. The situation is critical and dire so we are going to have to try and fight Gary Mitchell Charlie's way.  Any idea what kind of trap we can set so Gary and his rogue Federation armada can find us?"

Mr. Spock replied:

"It should be relatively simple, Captain. All we need to do is enable our Federation transponder beacon. Gary will then be able to find our exact location via the Starfleet galactic positioning system. Then he will be inclined to try and hunt us down."

Kirk felt optimistic:

"Good, then the first order of business is to enable the transponder beacon and let it do what it was designed for. In the meantime, Charlie, you do whatever trick you devised to perfect our cloak. Spock can find Gary's armada on long range sensors, but as soon as we spot them, Mr. Spock will then disable the transponder beacon again, and that will leave Gary to find empty space. I also recommend we shorten the distance Gary has to travel by warping as close to Earth as we can manage prior to spotting the armada on long range sensors. Okay, Charlie, you know what to do next and so do the rest of you. Let's get to it!"

****

The Enterprise traveled towards Earth at warp-4 for three days, while Mr. Spock and other science officer's and crew used long range sensors to scan space around the clock in the Enterprise's vicinity. As it went, it was Mr. Spock who was on duty, along with Captain Kirk and Captain Sulu and Uhura on the day shift when Spock found what they were looking for."

"Captain, I have located a large grouping of what appears to be Gary Mitchell's rogue Federation armada. I am 98% sure it is them, thus I just disabled our transponder beacon. But likewise having come this far to hunt for the Enterprise, while they should not be able to find us, they will be aware that we are out here. Estimated time for the armada to reach our last known location is 98 minutes. I suggest we put a good deal of distance from our last known location until they arrive. After that we may approach the armada in stealth until Charlie tells us we have come close enough to the starships for him to extend his powers to influence the minds of the starships crews."

Kirk replied:

"Very good, Mr. Spock. Mr. Sulu move us away from these coordinates at warp-1, then once we are clear, hold position until my next order. Uhura, contact Charlie Evans and instruct him to come to the bridge as fast as he can run."

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